Cary Hammer

March 9, 1960–January 15, 2020

Cary Mark Hammer, 59, died in San Francisco on Wednesday, January 15, 2020, after a prolonged illness.

Cary had a powerful intellect and a big heart, and many of his friendships spanned nearly his entire life. He loved playing poker, especially Texas Hold ‘em, and entered the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas for several years. He delighted in mathematically modeling games of chance to turn them to his advantage and it was a source of pride that he got kicked out of a series of casinos by outsmarting the blackjack tables.

He had a life-long passion for words and comedy. He was a master-level prankster, and treated pranking as an art form. He loved planning, designing, and performing—any opportunity to upturn the conventional. Overall, he loved life, but he also viewed it with a wry suspicion, recognizing—prankster to prankster—that it might just be one big practical joke on humanity. This thought actually comforted him, because it meant that the universe had a sense of humor, too. Cary was born on March 9, 1960 in New York City to psychotherapists Emanuel and Lila Hammer. He attended Walden, a progressive primary and secondary school, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Brown University in Rhode Island in 1982. He became a computer games consultant and contractor, first working at Atari and then as Director of Programming at Scholastic Software in New York. After moving to San Francisco, Cary founded his own company, Unexpected Development, focusing on handheld games for the Nintendo Game Boy and Sega Game Gear. Though Cary suffered from a progressive neurological disease that slowly paralyzed his body, his mind never faltered. Even as he was home bound, his connections with others was his greatest pleasure and source of strength.

Cary is survived by his partner Suzanne Scott, as well as his ex-wife Nadine Browning, and their two beloved sons Milo and Kirby Hammer. Cary was preceded in death by his father, mother, and sister.